Before the Fall (After the Fall #4) by Charlie Dalton

In Before the Fall, a prequel novel to the After the Fall trilogy, author Charlie Dalton tells the story of “the Fall” of humankind when the Earth was peppered with a deadly virus via meteorites.

It was time for the Perseid meteor shower and people were fascinated by the chunks of space rock that fell to Earth across every land mass picking them up, collecting them, selling them, and, generally passing them around as curiosities. The virus the rocks carried wasn’t detected for weeks and by the time it was discovered, massive numbers of people had already been infected. The virus spread quickly, unlike anything ever seen before, and those that were impacted turned into mindless, rage-filled, monsters that attacked everyone and anyone biting, tearing, and eating their flesh.

The President of the United States (as well as other heads of states across the globe) gathered military experts and scientists (including his best friend, Dr. Graham Beck) to stop the spread of the virus and the resulting destruction. But, it was already too late. With time running out for humanity, the strategies turned from a cure to a weapon to fight the green-lit satellite that keeps circling in the atmosphere above.

Before the Fall is Dr. Beck’s narrative and tells of the creation of the diary which had been hinted at in the series novels, and it does not disappoint. It lays out the sequence of events that led to the circumstances that existed at the time of the first book in the trilogy, and is a nice addition to the series. Dr. Beck, not a very likeable character previously, is definitely shown in a different, more sympathetic light. As with the entire series, I recommend this book to readers that enjoy young adult, post-apocalyptic stories.